Mystic Comics #2 - pt. 1

Happy New Year! Let's kick things off with a return to Timely Comics!

This issue starts with the debut of Mastermind Excello. Mastermind Excello is Earl Everett's code name with Naval Intelligence. Everett is an interesting choice of surname, since Bill Everett would be a known name in the small world of comic book publishing already. 

When Excello meditates, his mind conjures images of nearby evil, like he was casting a Detect Evil spell, only the Editor was allowing additional information here, including a visualization of the evil act (planning sabotage), as if Excello was scrying with a crystal ball. I think that's too much information from a 1st-level spell. Of course, it's also possible that Excello has a miniature crystal ball in his pocket and we just aren't privy to that information yet...

Excello allows himself to be captured, confident he will be taken to the spies' boss. Why he doesn't instead assume they will knock him out and just toss him overboard is puzzling, unless he was also casting an ESP spell?

The spies are Sovernians. The monocle on one of the spies is usually artist shorthand for them being Germans, but the naming conventions are odd; the spy chief's name is Kadash, which is a Jewish name. Sovernia sounds a little bit like Slovenia...so these are Jewish spies from Slovenia? 

While imprisoned on the Jewish Slovenians' battleship, Excello uses Clairaudience to overhear the chief plotting. To this point, Excello has seemed to clearly be a Magic-User -- but then he wrecks his way out of the chains binding him! In the next panel, Excello's wrecking ability is explained away by "Secret Chemical SF 44," which he has vials of concealed on his person. But are these trophy items, or flavor text explaining his wrecking ability?

"...machine guns are no match for Excello's triple propeller pistol." Really? Because it looks like an ordinary six-shooter. It doesn't seem possible that it can shoot three bullets at once through a single barrel. Does it shoot three times as fast as a pistol? That still doesn't seem as fast as a machine gun. Of course, that's thinking in terms of real world physics...in Hideouts & Hoodlums, your rate of fire is determined by your level. So a machine gun isn't super effective in the hands of a 1st-level spy, but still gets four attacks per turn. If a triple propeller pistol works like an automatic, then Excello can outshoot it if he is level 5 or higher -- and we already know he is if he can cast Clairaudience. H&H works again!    

I'm going to have to go with my earlier theory about the pocket crystal ball, because Kadash's plane should be well out of spell range when Excello reads where Kadash's HQ in New York is. It's on the 80th floor so, naturally, instead of taking the elevator or stairs, Excello dons "vacu-pads" on his hands and knees and climbs all 80 stories on the outside of the building, in broad daylight, because that's surely not going to draw attention. Or is it broad daylight? The sky is colored orange for some reason, so that makes it hard to pin down a time of day. 

After easily defeating Kadash and his men with just his fists, Excello disguises himself as Kadash using a disguise kit that we even get to see the contents of (which includes several fake mustaches of different styles). As a magic-user, this could have been explained away as a Change Self spell, but since we can see the kit I'm going to agree he used mundane means and saved the spell slot for something more useful. 

He also has a seaplane now because he took one from the spies and now uses it to get around. He heads to find Kadash's boss in Reedsville, New Jersey. An interesting choice of states -- Pennsylvania has the largest Reedsville, and West Virginia and Ohio also have their own Reedsvilles, but placing this in New Jersey makes the town fictional.  

The boss's boss's plot is kinda complicated. His spies have planted explosives all across the country. Instead of setting them off one at a time, they are all rigged to be set off remotely from one master switch in Reedsville -- a set-up that required taking over a powerhouse with "super turbines" to power the master switch. It might not take a mastermind to notice something that suspicious. 

The jig is up and we know Excello is a superhero as well when he picks up a turbine and throws it at guards. It's hard to guess how much that turbine weighs, especially since it looks more like a boiler than a turbine...but I should think the Raise Car power would handle it. Excello combines that with Improvise Missile Weapon I to take out three guards, and then shoots the rest. Excello must have a license to kill.

Until now, Excello hasn't seemed too overpowered, but one vial of his secret chemical and blow up the entire powerhouse, which seems a tad powerful. Even if just a one-shot item, he's just wrecked things like a superhero of at least level 6.

Excello also has a pocket transmitter he can use to contact Naval intelligence and have them, on his orders, fire a coastal defense gun at any target he names, plus calling cards with an American flag on them and the catchphrase "America first, last and always" (and without the Oxford comma, no less!). 

From this story, I would say Excello is a magic-user/superhero with four brevet ranks in magic-user and one brevet rank in superhero.

(Read from Marvel Masterworks: Mystic Comics vol. 1)

Zip Comics #3 - pt. 5

More Captain Valor today, with Mort Meskin showing off his skill with crowd scenes, though hampered by some really racist depictions and sometimes sketchy details. I bring this to your attention, though, for panel 1, so we can talk about the two ways to set up a fight scene. Version 1 is that it occurs in "real time," with the crew arriving onto the deck in waves as they can reach it. Version 2 is that you set the scene with all the fighters already in the scene and then start the clock again. 

And we're jumping out of Captain Valor already into the next story, Mr. Satan. Holy cow, this scene is gory. There's actual blood everywhere! These bad guys are brutal...but the point of sharing here is the second to last panel, where Mr. Satan runs out, grabs the girl, and escapes unseen. But unseen by how many? We only see that one guy, but there must be a lot of other killers around. Is it fair to say this can be explained away as a surprise turn, a moving silently skill check, or maybe both to reflect the difficulty of no one happening to see him?  
 

The panels seem to be in the wrong order here...Mr. Satan should probably try to get that woman to safety first, instead of leaving her alone in a tunnel and going out to look for clues. 

What else can we gather from this page? Superhero costumes, despite appearing to have no pockets, must have room for matches or a lighter on them somewhere, or Mr. S would never have got that giant fire lit so fast. 

Also, we learn that rocks used as improvised weapons don't have to be very big.

That seems, at first, to be a clever twist about the sheriff, and having them both wind up on the tracks makes it seem extra surprising when the big reveal happens, but...why did it happen? Is he showing off his confidence in his men, that they would not betray him by tying him up for real? Is the deception part of trying to get Mr. Satan to reveal when the payrolls are "going to ride," and if so, why not try to trick him into telling while still on the tracks? Or he could have revealed himself as leader sooner, never been tied down, and still used the threat of the train to coerce Mr S into giving up the info? But on the other hand, if the robbers don't know when the payroll is coming, why are they so sure a train is coming soon? 

And if Mr. Satan knew the national guard was coming, why go back early to scout with the sheriff without them?

If it wasn't already obvious, Mr. Satan would be statted as a mysteryman. His "spectacular leap" and snatching Doris out of the car and jumping out in time both qualify as mysteryman stunts.

Now we're going to jump into the next story with Zambini the Miracle Man, and this is a prime example of everything wrong with the magician genre: if your magic-user is so powerful that Satan himself has to plot against him while he's on vacation so his guard is down -- then your magic-user is too powerful.

As if to illustrate this, Satan causes a tidal wave to threaten Zambini's ship and, instead of simply calming the waters, Zambini freezes "the oceans." Way to alter Earth's climate there, Zam! 

More interesting are these devil men...let's see if I need to stat them! Hmm...I guess not -- they get mass polymorphed into penguins on the very next page before they can do anything!

Mass Polymorph is, of course, going to be a Hideouts & Hoodlums spell. I think I've determined before it would have to be a ninth level spell, even though it gets cast an awful lot in comic books.

Sure, Zambini could have just cast Resist Fire on himself instead of conjuring asbestos...although, perhaps he did cast Resist Fire and this is how it manifested? Previously, we've seen Zatara cast a healing spell that made a first aid kit appear. The conceit here is that magic takes whatever form is most familiar to the caster. 

Really, Zambini? You're traveling into Dante's Inferno and your only concern is how long the trip is taking you?

And is he really trapped in a net, or just relaxing on a hammock?  

 

Whoa, whoa, whoa - take a close look at that Cage of Flesh. The bars are made up of human forearms, each grasping the next one in the row. That is crazy grizzly -- but also just the thing to impress veteran D&D players, accustomed to dungeons full of grizzly things. That it seems to contain an anti-magic field is just icing on the cake.

Who's the fool, Satan? You just told them to push the flammable cage into fire. 

The "docile" rabbits tracks with how polymorph works (or at least the spells of 4th level and above; H&H has lower level polymorph spells this won't apply to), as there should be a chance of losing your mind/personality to the new form. Otherwise, these would be satanic rabbits!

I'm not going to show you the rest of this crazy story, but here's two spoilers: one, Zambini meets a dinosaur down there, either brought down there in prehistoric times as a pet, or the story is suggesting that's where dinosaurs all went when they died?

Lastly, Satan is killed, which is a pretty crazy ending for just your third issue. 

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Prize Comics #2 - pt. 3

One last page of Jupiter to look at. It should surprise no one that microzoric isn't a real thing. The effect of the ray is impossibly fast, but consistent with how illogical comic book science works. 

Ganging up on the mad scientists, though, that seems like pretty sound psychology. I can also understand the mad scientist, overpowered by all that magic, committing suicide to regain some control.

We get a Mass Teleport spell again, suggesting Jupiter is actually 16th level. The spell he hints at in the end is a much simpler spell-version of Sense Friend in Need. 

That looks like it might actually be a map of the Congo, showing the lost city of Tsul in the southeast corner, in the Mitumba Mountains, which actually makes sense for hiding a city. 

But the real reason I took a close look at this page was the notion of a collapsible canoe. I wasn't sure that was a thing, but apparently it is, and that would be a handy thing to put on an expanded starting equipment list at some time.    

This is interesting to me, as it seems there was a good chance Laura would have drowned had Jaxon not saved her, as if Jaxon made a save vs. science to avoid drowning and Laura didn't, but him helping her convinced the Editor to give her another save?

"Who are those strange creatures?" "Whoa, Laura, that is uncalled for and horribly racist! Those are just black men, not strange creatures! Geez!" Laura might be racist, but the artist treats them pretty decently, with un-typically realistic depictions.

A jaguar is pretty cool for a boss monster's pet.

The start of this story was pretty solid, but it got downright weird by now. The story here is that she's leading them to the secret exit only she knows about to get of Laura, so her husband can't replace her with Laura...but killing Laura would do the same thing, and sending her to walk into fire would sure accomplish that. And yet, amazingly, there really is an exit behind the ever-burning cave mouth. There should be no save for this one, running through fire automatically does damage in Hideouts & Hoodlums.

It gets weirder to find the lost city's treasure is sitting in a cave halfway to the exit instead of, you know, somewhere in the lost city. 

And then there's the matter of how they're even seeing the treasure and the snakes...in a cave, in complete darkness. I think I count nine vipers in that last panel.

It keeps coming. The twist ending of the disguised professor comes out of nowhere and throws everyone off so much that they forget all about the fact that there is still another way into the city of Tsul, so dumping the dynamite into the hole and caving in the exit caves doesn't really hide anything. And that's not even bringing up the racist depiction marring the last panel, after blacks were treated fairly normal the rest of the story.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

  

 

 

 

Adventure Comics #48 - pt. 2

And we're back with what I promised, a look at this issue's installment of Federal Men. In it, the FBI gets a hot tip that counterfeiters are working in Northville, and in an unusual way -- a fake $1,000 bill is mailed to them anonymously, but came from Northville. Of course, we're given no indication as to where Northville is but, since so many comic book stories have a New York City orientation by now, it stands to reason that "Northville" means somewhere North of NYC, so...maybe it's actually Albany? Or even Poughkeepsie? Ah well, it's all speculation...

The plot is one we've seen before and will see again -- the hero stumbles across a crime school where a professor (or professors) teach classes on forgery, safe cracking, and killing in exchange for a cut of future profits. This one is pretty expensive -- a complete course costs $5,000, plus 25% of your take for the first year. I would be really leery of allowing a real game mechanic benefit to this.

Steve Carson (our hero) disguises himself as a "tough" by smoking a cigarette, going without shaving, and possibly darkening his eyebrows. He's caught -- not because he looks just like Steve Carson, but because he gets fingerprinted and the Professor somehow has all federal men's fingerprints on file.

Fitting in with the dark themes at DC Comics this month, the deathtrap is a suicide machine -- you're strapped in, with a gun in your hand, and the machine makes you squeeze the trigger and shoot yourself in the head. Without wrecking things, it's a pretty foolproof deathtrap -- so the only way out for Steve is to have one of the hoodlums turn on the Professor and free him. The twist is that the hoodlum did it -- and sent the fake $1,000 bill to tip off the feds -- not out of any altruism, but revenge because he was about to be expelled.

By now, the Sandman has been downgraded from billionaire Wesley Dodds to millionaire Wesley Dodds. Wesley is shown smoking a pipe, and the Sandman carries binoculars for the first, if not only time, in this issue.

Dian Belmont is in love with Wesley already, if her letter to him is written honestly. Her father, the D.A., learns Wesley is the Sandman in this story and seems cool with it, even though the Sandman was wanted by the police in the past.

The Sandman is shown jumping safely from a second floor window. Should stunts be able to lessen falling damage? Maybe. Maybe...half damage per 10', per stunt?

The Belmonts own a Chris-Craft -- Chris-Craft Boats was an American manufacturer of boats that was founded by Christopher Columbus Smith. This page is a good commercial for them -- it's fleet, and can easily catch up to a yacht. 

When Sandman searches Judge Quick he finds a letter in a secret pocket. I'm not sure how you conceal a "secret pocket" on your person. A pocket inside your jacket certainly wouldn't qualify as "secret." Maybe it's sewn to the inside of his pant leg...? The letter is a major clue without even reading it, because it smells of one of the suspects' perfume. 

Sandman climbs a wine-covered trellis (it's called a ladder, but it's pretty clearly a trellis) to an upstairs window, which should be a basic skill check, maybe even with a bonus if the trellis is sturdy. Dian, the Woman in Evening Clothes (and that's including high heels, no doubt) climbs it right after him, and that's got to be an expert skill check.

In one panel, the gas from his gas gun is referred to as "deadly."   

In Socko Strong, Socko is trapped in a deathtrap underwater, but he finds a trapdoor that serves as the drain for this pool. It feeds to an underground stream and Socko is swept into it. He emerges, "finally," on the bank of a river. But how long was he underwater? Were there pockets of air for him, or did he hold his breath the whole time? We're not told, but those details can mean life or death in a realistic campaign. 

The next day, while shooting a film, the guide wire snaps on a heavy arc lamp, and the lamp is about to fall on a small girl. "The entire group all stands motionless in frozen horror -- except for Socko..." Now, there's two possible explanations for that. One is that, as the only Hero present on the scene, the Editor is making sure none of the other characters on the scene can upstage him. Or, the Editor used surprise rolls to determine if anyone was surprised by the falling arc lamp, or perhaps Socko surprises the falling arc lamp, giving him even more time to act.

In an interesting twist, the father of the girl was paid to kill off Socko by sabotaging his parachute for the next scene to film. Doing the good deed pays off and saves Socko.  

(Read at readcomiconline.to)

 

 

Miracle Comics #2 - pt. 3

I did promise, so here's Dash Dixon's villain, The Eyes, in person. As you can see, having light-up fake eyes is a cool look, but...if that's why he's called The Eyes...then what are Fingers' fingers like...?

It seems weird that Dash is following directions from a blindfolded man, but what you don't know from the previous page is that the man had been abducted by The Eyes' men before and, though blindfolded then, from counting the number of stops and turns he thinks he knows where their hideout is. 

Now, players in a similar situation can try this tactic, but it seems to me that it would be really easy to guess wrong how long it was between stops, unless you count the seconds and have a fantastic memory for numbers. For this, I would have them make an Intelligence check, possibly even with a -2 penalty, since it seems like the route was pretty complex.

Lastly, Dash is using the Multi-Attack power to get two grappling attacks at once.

While I still think Dash himself is ludicrous, there is a lot to like about this story. I like the detail of the entrance to the hideout being a ladder concealed in a fake boiler. I like the trapped, electrified door. How much damage should 3,000 volts do? I just read that 30 volts can kill you, but it's not an even progression where every 30 volts should do a point of damage. Electricity is weird (that's my term for it, not the scientific term) and there are a lot of factors that affect how much damage electricity does to you, and a high voltage is not necessarily going to do more harm than a low voltage. Also, 3,000 volts is the strength of a strong Taser, so I'm going to set the damage range low for this -- 1-8 points.

Something else to consider here: should an electrified door be harder to wreck? Yes, I would say it would move the category up to machine level.  

I also like how all the mobsters have nicknames to distinguish them -- Finger, Trusty, and Switch. Nicknames can instantly give us a sense of character, and also help us keep track of which one is which.

Far from the first cross-dressing villain. Hey, wait...how does Dash know Eyes' eyes are cameras? Did he see a clue in the hideout we missed? Did he use a Microscopic Vision or Super-Senses power to see it? Is he just guessing?

 

Next up is The Scorpion and, sadly, this feature does not live up to the promise of that first panel.

Often, when you have a character who's supposed to be a celebrity in a story, you give him a name that's similar to a real world celebrity in that field, but I can't find any famous crooners with a name like Bill Phelps. 

Also, what is so suspicious about a millionaire cashing $10,000 checks daily? For all this guy knows, he's working with donations to charities.

I thought Zenda seemed like a made-up name, but Ancestry.com tells me that there were about 20 Zenda families in the U.S. in the 1920s, the majority of them living in Wisconsin! 

"Gosh, I'm so scared of Gus Zenda, my hair just turned white!"

Rex Gray, The Scorpion's superpower is his ability to make fantastic logical leaps that just happen to be true. Not only is there something suspicious about a millionaire making out checks, not only does he reach the conclusion that Phelps is actually an imposter based on two overheard sentences, but he figures he'll be able to prove it...by listening to Phelps' records?

And how do you get to be "number one kidnapper"? Kidnappers always try to stay anonymous until they're caught.

It gets zanier. Rex is so convinced he's right that he's willing to bash an innocent butler over the head so hard it changes the color of his jacket. Then, for the first and possibly last time in comics, a hero makes a villain sing at gunpoint.

The name of the song is, of course "Old Folks at Home," but even by 1940 it was already commonly known as "Swanee River," even leading to a movie with that name that came out in '39. The last crooner to release an album featuring this song was Bing Crosby in 1935, but Phelps clearly bears no physical resemblance to Crosby and I'm willing to discard that theory now.

What? Where did this oscillograph come from? Rex's back pocket? This violates the unwritten rule of every Old School RPG I know -- your character has no items on him other than what is recorded on your character sheet.

I also find it laughable that the casually dressed and boyish-looking Rex is immediately recognized as The Scorpion. This guy is the terror of the underworld? Really?

 

Oh my gosh...before I let you go, I just have to rant about the amateurish artwork here. Not only is every panel background-less, not only is Rex himself clearly the one shooting the imposter and shouting "Take that you squealer" in the first panel, not only does the real Phelps look nothing like the fake Phelps, but no one on this page is dressed like Zenda was on the previous page. Has Rex captured a Zenda impersonator while the real Zenda got away? 

Comics.org tells me the artist for this story is unknown. I wouldn't take credit for it either...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)
 

 
 

Slam-Bang Comics #1 - pt. 2

Okay, the planes going dead are explained (as if we needed it, as cliched as the rays are), but what we never get explained is how the machine guns have no effect. Bulletproof armor on the planes?

Also, take a look at the jowls on War Bird. In the Golden Age, a Hero could debut in his late 40s. 

It's nice that Von Kruhl was kind enough to write his note in English for us, despite being Serbian and writing this for Frenchmen to read.

Where is the searchlight that was on the front of the plane before? Perhaps more odd, what was holding it in place on that smooth surface?

I do like that, as hi-tech as Von Kruhl's forces are, it's an ordinary pair of binoculars that foils him.

We don't see enough of this tactic, where the hero sneaks into the enemy's hideout and, instead of engaging the enemy, wrecks their stuff. This makes especially good sense in the aviator genre.

"Look! A Frenchman!" Is the thinking there that only a Frenchman would be sabotaging their planes?

"Hammer-like blows" would normally be flavor text, except that it seems pretty clear War Bird is hitting them with a wrench, which would be heavy enough to do normal club damage.

You can probably guess that War Bird gets away and wins the day, so we'll jump into Jim Dolan. Jim is in the reporter hero genre, but with the twist that he's an editor.

The list of his past accomplishments seems like a set-up for starting him out with a brevet rank. It's also a pretty good list of scenario ideas you could add to a longer list, and the final panel illustrates the advantages of making the police chief your supporting cast (something I saw being put to good use in my last H&H campaign).

I'm not going to address everything on this page; we've talked about trip attacks and improvised weapons plenty of times. We could talk about movement and if rushing out the door should really be faster than standing up (hint: in H&H it's determined entirely by initiative rolls). But I'm mainly sharing this page because the mobsters are not only using hot irons as torture devices, but somehow have flaming hot irons. Did they soak those things in kerosene first? They look pretty fearsome; I might let them do 2-7 damage as melee weapons.

I've talked before about smoke and heat damage from trying to rescue in an arson scenario, but what's interesting here is that Jim spots a clue in the fire, when he clearly wouldn't have had time to do a search. This has to be a freebie from the Editor, as every skill check should take at least one melee turn, and in most cases should take one exploration turn. 

Does Jim have to roll to hit to land in the net? To truly be fearless, one would think he does, but it makes equal sense for the firemen to roll to hit him with the net, and as long as two of them succeed their rolls, they catch him. 

It's interesting that Jim doesn't know his Bible well enough to know the psalm without researching. His Editor could have spared him the trouble and let him have an Intelligence check to remember.

The clue seems like a bit of a stretch to me, though...

I'm not personally cool with Heroes holding guns on people's faces while interrogating them, but it does happen in games.

Swimming from the patrol board to the yacht is a smart tactic, giving him a chance at surprise he would have lost had the patrol board pulled up alongside the yacht.

We'll jump ahead to Lucky Lawton, this anthology's western feature. I could mention that the law was tougher in the Old West than many give it credit for; even in self-defense these two still have to make their case in court. Or I could mention that Pal can act without being ordered to, making me suspect that Pal the dog is actually being played as a Hero character. But what really catches my eye are the hashmarks on the wall of the jail outside the cells. What would the sheriff have been keeping track of like that, and couldn't do on a calendar...?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Smash Comics #8 - pt. 3

Panels like this first one are so useful for figuring out how fast Heroes move. He's flying from New York City to Washington, D.C. -- about 220 miles as the crow flies -- and makes it in 22 minutes. That makes it really easy to figure out Bozo can fly at a staggering 600 MPH -- that's the 3rd-level Race the Bullet power.

Lifting the car is the 1st-level Raise Car power. Coupling that with a flying power makes it even more deadly. Since Bozo seems to have reached cloud altitiude, that puts him at approximately 16,000'.  Now, the Fly powers, as written, have no maximum altitude, so the only distinction is how long it takes to reach cloud level. Even at Fly I, this would only take about 4 1/2 minutes. At Fly II, this would take just over 2 minutes.

Taking no damage from a car exploding probably requires the 4th-level Invulnerability power.

If Bozo has returned to New York City, there is no Bird Airport there, nor even a name close to that.

Traps are usually ineffective if the Heroes have to touch something they have no reason to touch. I can't imagine what Hugh is hoping to accomplish by having Bozo lift the cable. Adolph is clearly inside the shack, not behind the cable!

20,000 volts is not going to melt Bozo, guys. That's a fairly standard amount of volts; your car's spark plug can take it. Now, interestingly, in a more hi-tech setting, Bozo would be full of electronics and 20,000 volts might mess with his systems. But in 1940, robots are chiefly mechanical contrivances, like clockwork automatons. So this trap isn't really doing anything but giving him electrified lariats to kill people with.

Let's jump ahead into Chic Carter. Chic's adventures in Moldavia are finally over and he's back in New York City trying to catch murderers.  Now, by all rights, this scenario should be over before it begins. Chic decides to beat up someone acting like a security guard of the professor he needs to talk to. Now, had Brenda screamed first, Chic could be trying to get in faster to save her, but since she screams after, Chic is just punching anyone who touches his arm.

More seriously, Hideouts & Hoodlums currently has no mechanic for making an attack roll miss against someone else. It doesn't seem like we can ascribe this to flavor text, since saving Lansing's life is vital to the story and why Lansing trusts Chic to take over the investigation. It's possible we could use the parry rules to slightly modify someone else's Armor Class from missile attacks.

Now, this is not a tactic I recommend most players using. Chic has a hunch thieves will come for the valuables in the safe room that night, so he remains locked in the safe room to ambush them. Is that safe room air tight? That's something Chic's player should ask first, in case he's wrong and the thieves wait another night. 

Redundancies are a good way to slow Heroes down, if not discourage them from getting to where they want to get into (players tend to be stubborn like that). Here, we have a wall safe, inside a safe room, each with its own combination.

Dousing the lights gives everyone a penalty to hit, but the open window means positioning is very important in this combat.

That is one amazing hunch Kent gets. Based only on Jenkins' testimony that he didn't know why he pulled the lever, Kent decides he must have been controlled by a VOODOO MASTER!! Instead of a garden-variety hypnotism. Or, you know, lying and being bribed to pull the lever. Somehow, looking at blueprints helped Kent reach this conclusion too, though I suspect the Editor fed this hint to Kent's player during setting up the scenario.

The Invisible Hood remembers to bring a rope and grappling hook on jobs where he thinks he'll need them...though if he's invisible, and the gate is open, I don't know why he takes the time to scale the wall...

I like the trap of the crystal ball next to the throne that casts blinding light at the flip of a switch. But, how does this make him visible? If bright light foils his invisibility, then he's not really invisible so much as camouflaged.

How stupid does a villain have to be to, in the middle of monologing, point out the very switch that can blow up his hideout?

The battle axe is a good choice to help with wrecking things. I might be inclined to give him a +1 bonus with the axe. Though, maybe that should come with a 2 in 6 chance of taking 1-4 points of damage when smashing something electrical...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Thrilling Comics #2 - pt. 1

Mike's Amazing World of Comics tells me that the next comic book I should be reviewing, in order, is War Comics #1. But I accidentally reviewed that early, a year ago. Oops! So let's skip another ahead to Better's Thrilling Comics and the original Dr. Strange.

Our adventure begins with a mysterious death and the easy plot hook of Strange being asked to investigate it by the police. Strange looks for clues and, in an unusual move that I want to call your attention to, appears to be using scissors to cut into the dead man's clothing (unless, of course, he's also planning on performing an autopsy...). This is how he finds a secretive pin sewn into the seam of the clothing.

Note how Strange now has dark hair. Does he, instead of wearing a costume or uniform, just darken his hair before going into action?

Really, Fleming? The only place in the world you would find a three-headed serpent is an ancient lost city? I decided to do a quick Internet search on three-headed serpents to see if he was right. Besides an awful lot of hits for the video game Hitman 2, there was an article about a pillar depicting a three-headed serpent that came from Delphi. Good thing Strange didn't go there instead!

I wouldn't put much stock in what that assistant's telling you either, Strange. And you, Richard Hughes, writer of this story, if you knew you were going to base this story in Tibet, how hard would it have been in 1940 to do a little research and learn the real name of the desert there (which is the Gobi)?

One of the nice things about that last page is the fallibility of the assassin, who allows the assistant to get one vital word out before offing him. This makes it pretty easy to follow from one plot character right to the next -- and then risk killing him by punching him through a wall.

The game mechanics of Hideouts & Hoodlums (remember, this blog is also about a game!) don't currently support punching villains through walls, and would either need a modification to the pushing rules, or a new power that combines damage with wrecking things. I would definitely need to consider this as we move ahead, as I can think of quite a few later comic books that combine violence with such a flagrant disregard for property.

This third page, to the right, makes no sense to me...

Strange seems to have Crewe dead to rights already, yet after beating up his henchmen and showing off his Nigh-Invulnerable Skin, he just leaves so he can tail Crewe instead. You would think Crewe would be extra-cautious now about Strange and not act so brazenly criminal.

As stupid as Crewe is, his henchmen must be even stupider to nab a girl and bring her to their boss, just for loitering around a giant skyscraper. Strange isn't happy with them either, as he's perfectly willing to toss one of them out the window, knowing it's a lethal fall from that height.

Now this page has some tricky geometry to it. I'm not sure how Strange twists his body to land on the roof across the street, but it definitely appears that he is still leaping instead of flying. And, the fact that he needs to land on the roof instead suggests there is an upper limit to how far he feels he can fall safely.

In game mechanics-terms, maybe an upper limit needs to be put on the Feather Landing power. 

A herb that cures diseases like the spell would be a very valuable item in any campaign, and probably one best to keep out of the Heroes' grasp so it doesn't change the campaign world too dramatically.

Mongols are just wandering around Tibet? Mongolia is about 1,400 miles from Tibet. Seems like more writing done without research to me. Though the artist, Alexander Kostuk, at least looked at some old references for how Mongolians once dressed.

Strange uses his wrecking things ability on a stone wall, a door, and a cage here, demonstrating that a superhero needs the ability to use that game mechanic in quick succession.

What's going on with the guards being drawn like primitive African natives, hurling spears? How does that make sense in Tibet?

Rescuing prisoners is always a good idea, for the "good deed" XP award, the useful information they may have about the hideout, and their Supporting Cast recruitment potential.

Animals never fare well against Golden Age comic book Heroes and the fights are usually over in a single panel. This one, with Strange fighting two lions, occurs largely off-panel!

Once again, Hughes gets his geography wrong. The "Mountains of the Moon" are a legendary mountain range in east Africa, once thought to be the source of the Nile River.

More evidence that ordinary people can make push attacks on superheroes.

Strange wisely carries a flashlight.

Finding a secret door usually includes finding the means of opening it. But, if you just suspect a secret door is there, but you're getting impatient waiting for that successful "find secret doors" check, you can always wreck the wall. If you're right, you will only be wrecking against the door category, even if you can't actually see the door.

Millions of dollars' worth of treasure is usually a campaign-busting find and should be avoided doling out in actual play.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)